Monday, August 20, 2007

Rudy's Iron curtain

"Your papers please." It was always said with some kind of Hollywood Russian or German accent at some border crossing; some dingy alley with wet cobblestones in the dark of some Eastern European night. The Gestapo agent, or the Man from the Stasi or KGB in a leather trench coat would urge you into the back seat of a Lada or black Mercedes and you were off to some nameless cellar to be tortured and held forever without charges. I grew up in the years after WW II and movies were like that. We were so proud of being a free country and we called ourselves the Free World and the free world wasn't a place where everyone was watching you and an anonymous tip would cause you to disappear in the night.

The Reaction talks this morning about Rudy Guiliani's plan to require all visitors to the US to carry a card with photo and fingerprints and for which, if they fit the profile, they can be asked at any time. If they don't comply they can be "thrown out" of the country. That will sound great to those who view foreigners as swarthy, suspicious, sinister undesirables and will sound like a reason to shun the US by doctors, scientists, engineers, businessmen, journalists, artists, writers, students, tourists and people visiting their relatives who thought a passport was enough.

Perhaps I'm being touchy about the possibility of national ID cards for all Americans, but I don't think so. the SAFE card plan seems like only the first step. A citizen, after all, will have to prove he is not an alien without a card and for that he will need citizenship papers with him at all times, particularly if he has an accent or isn't European looking or has a good Florida tan and a beard, as I do. It's an idea that's been floated about since September of 2001 by fear mongers like Rudy who want to appear as though they are defending America by suggesting the indefensible. The United States of America never was intended to be a police state, a place where you can be challenged, where you can be presumed guilty and spied upon and have your privacy invaded at the whim of anyone and your rights violated, your property confiscated and your head held under water without recourse to justice. It was never intended to be a place where someone can stop you on the street or kick your door down at midnight asking for papers. It was never intended to be led by people like Rudy Giuliani

Rudy, who looks as disgusting in his 9/11 hero costume as he does in drag, has a record of justifying means by their intended ends. He's the mayor after all, who tried to close the Brooklyn Museum and shut down the subway line because it contained a painting he erroneously thought was "blasphemous." Yes, indeed, requiring people to carry ID cards they way they do in China and requiring them to prove legal status at the whim of any policeman would be very useful in exercising total control. It's easy to sell a police state to frightened people and Benito - excuse me, Rudy - seems never to miss a chance to tell us how scary those foreign terrorists are.

No foreign saboteurs or terrorists can ever be more than a thorn in our side. Rudy Guiliani and the party of George Bush can be a knife in our heart.